Hungry, Hungry, Phil
by bigbiznizz
Summary: Phil notices an uncontrollable, rapid increase in his appetite along with a serious, sleep-walking problem. In desperate need to stop this vicious hunger, he decides to take on the biggest meal in Pickford........
1. Chapter 1

Issue #2- "Hungry, Hungry, Phil"

Since my first story did so well, I guess I'm back by popular demand. It makes me feel all good inside to see people actually enjoying my writing. Anyway, enough with the chit-chat, it's time to get to the sequel that you've all been waiting for. Here's "Hungry, Hungry, Phil", the 2nd issue of the "Misadventures of Phil and Keely."

Hungry, Hungry, Phil

**Chapter 1**

It was a typical, Sunday night, in the Diffy household as the family prepared to gather together and enjoy a good, old, homemade dinner. Phil and Keely were up to their usual, after-school, studying as they debated over the solution to an algebraic equation. Lloyd Diffy was playing with Curtis out in the backyard and Pim was, well...she was doing nothing...as usual.

With only four words, Barbara Diffy was able to bring an entire household of busy people into the dining room.

"Come and get it!" she shouted, making sure that these magical words were heard all throughout the house.

A stampede of hungry people immediately rushed into the dining room to see what Barbara whipped up for dinner that night.

Phil and Keely were still debating over that algebraic equation on their way down to the dining room.

"...And that means that x has to equal seven," Phil concluded, after working out the problem several times.

"Why?" Keely asked.

"Y is equal to 14 because you see..."

"No," Keely interrupted, "I mean, why does x equal to seven?"

"It's really easy Keely," Phil explained. "It's nothing more than simple math. All you have to do is find the hypotenuse of the isosceles, right triangle, divide it by pi, convert the degree of the angle into a decimal and plug it into the Pythagorean Theorem to find the value for x."

"Yeah...I was kinda thinking the same thing too." Keely replied, having not understood a single thing that he just said. "I think it's a perfect time for a little grub to get our brains going."

They were the last to reach the dinner table, which included a smorgasbord of food that, literally, made Phil's mouth begin to drool.

"Meatloaf, macaroni, mashed potatoes, corn, honey biscuits...," Phil murmured, as he drifted toward the table.

"Yup, that's right, honey," Barbara said. "I fixed all of your favorites."

A few servings later, everyone was finished eating, except Phil, who couldn't seem to get enough of the taste-tantalizing treats.

"Phil," Keely commented, "I noticed your appetite has really, _really_, increased lately. Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about Phil, Keely," Lloyd casually commented. "It's normal for a growing, teenage boy his age to acquire an increased appetite. It's nothing to be worried about. Am I right, son?"

"Absolutely," Phil blurted out, dropping his fork onto the table, signifying that he was finally done.

"I guess you're right, Mr. Diffy. I suppose it's just a phase that every boy goes through as a teenager," Keely agreed.

"Oh, look at the time," she pointed out. "It's already 8:00. Time flies when you're, uh...watching a guy consume eight servings of food."

"Nine servings, Keel," Phil corrected her, with a toothpick in his mouth "It was nine servings."

"Whatever," she said. "Anyway, I think I'll be on my way. Thanks for dinner, Mrs. Diffy. See you tomorrow, Phil."

Phil went to sleep that night with a full stomach, which usually leads to a very comfortable night's sleep. Late into the night, everyone else was knocked out too, resting up for another busy day.

Meanwhile, a body was quietly moving throughout the house, without anyone knowing it. An unknown, shadowy figure tip-toed down the hallway and snuck into the kitchen, while creating an excessive amount of noise, from knocking down pots and pans.

Early the next morning, the Diffy family walked into the kitchen and surprisingly found Phil, face-down in a pan of leftover meatloaf. Phil soon woke up too, surprised _himself_, to find meatloaf scattered all over his face. This left a confused and puzzled look on his face which he really had no explanation for.

"Okay..._now_ it's something to be worried about..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

After school, that day, Phil and Keely decided to meet up with each other at a local restaurant called, "Country Cuisine". Phil was eager to tell Keely what had happened to him the previous night and enjoy some of the best prime rib in Pickford, of course. Both of them had arrived at the restaurant at promptly, six o'clock, as they went inside and grabbed a couple of seats near the window.

"Keely, the weirdest thing happened to me last night," Phil said, still trying to figure out what exactly happened.

"Does it have something to do with your mom's leftover meatloaf?" Keely asked.

"Actually, it does...how did you know that?"

"You have a little bit of it around the side of your face," Keely replied, as she pointed out on his face exactly where it was.

"Oh, I could've sworn I washed all of it off this morning. Anyway, like I was saying, the weirdest thing happened to me last night. I remember going to sleep last night on a full stomach, which led to the best sleep I had in a long time, and..._somehow_, I woke up this morning face-down in a pan of the leftover meatloaf. I had no idea how I got there!"

"Hmm, seems to me like you have the symptoms of sleepwalking, Phil," Keely replied, scratching her head. "Also, I think you might have a serious case of the midnight munchies. I knew something had to be wrong, if your appetite suddenly increased _that_ much. I never seen you eat that much before."

"Nah, I guess I just might've been really hungry that night," Phil concluded.

"You said you went to sleep on a full stomach. How could you have still been hungry after that? For goodness sake, you consumed eight servings!"

"It was nine, Keely!" Phil reminded her. "How many times do I have to remind you that it was nine servings!"

By this time, a waiter came around to their table to take their orders.

"What can I get for you two?" the waiter asked.

"You go first, Keely," Phil said, still browsing through the menu. "I'm gonna take a little while."

"Okay then," Keely agreed, "I think I'll have the chicken, caesar salad and..."

"Ha," Phil interrupted, "Salad? You came here to, Country Cuisine, to get a salad? A couple pieces of lettuce and tomatoes...c'mon Keely, you could've made that at home. You've got to be kidding me."

"Well, I'm trying to watch my figure, Phil. I don't want to gain a lot of weight or anything."

"That's typical of you girls to say something like that. _Oh, I think I'm just going to have a salad because if I gain two pounds_, _I think I'll just die,_" Phil commented, sarcastically. "Ha, you wanna go ahead and order a glass of low-carb water, too?"

"They serve that here?" Keely asked, looking as serious as she can be.

"Um...don't mind her, waiter. She's just joking, hopefully. For me, I'll have the Pickford prime rib, 16-ounce sirloin steak, chicken-fried steak, smothered pork chops, mashed potatoes, baked beans, cole slaw, corn, black-eyed peas, macaroni and home-style bisuits."

"Geez, Phil, you sure you don't wanna order the _entire_ menu?"

"Well I would, if I could, but I don't have that much money on me," Phil humorously replied.

About twenty minutes later, the waiter came back to the table to serve them their food. He placed one, small plate on Keely's side and six, large plates on Phil's side. Phil wasted no time chomping away on his food as a disgusted Keely just sat back and watched.

"Eww, gross Phil!" she exclaimed. "Couldn't you at least use a fork? You're eating like something off of National Geographic or something."

In a mere seven minutes, this...beast consumed all six plates of food, even eating the parsley on the side of the plates! After Phil was finished, he noticed three waiters carrying a plate of food about the size of his body, to a man sitting in the corner table.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Look at that Keely! There must be at least twenty pounds of food on that plate! Why didn't I see that on the menu?"

"Oh, you mean the, Pickford Gut-Buster, platter," Keely explained. "Yeah, nobody..._nobody_ has ever been able to finish that platter. Every man that tried to finish it, gave up near the end and had to pay a whopping fifty buck for the meal. However, for that one day when someone actually _does_ finish it, he will become immortalized on, Country Cuisine's", wall of champions. Plus, they get a free meal out of it too."

"And it looks like we have another failure, too. That guy didn't even get halfway through."

After the meal, Phil and Keely headed home as Phil went to sleep again, that night, on a full stomach.

"This time, I'm gonna make sure I don't find myself in another awkward situation like this morning. I'll just use this rope and tie my legs down to the bed, to prevent me from raiding the fridge again."

Phil went to sleep that night feeling pretty good, but when he woke up, it was a completely different story. He woke up, once again, in the kitchen except this time, his body was covered with an assortment of various foods. When he took a look into the fridge, he was shocked to see that there was barely anything left."

"...But how did I manage to get out of my bed?" Phil thought to himself.

He rushed back up into his room and found another shocking discovery, near his bed. The ropes that he used to secure his feet down with, were still there, but they had..._large, bite-marks_ in them. Phil...ate his way through the ropes to get into the kitchen.

"This has _really _gotten out of hand," Phil murmured. "I need to find some way to suppress my hunger, soon. Wait a second...I think I might have just the right meal in mind."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

When Phil met up with Keely that morning, he immediately told her of his repeated, midnight, hunger attack.

"Phil, this is _really_ serious, now. I don't care what you say, I think its time for you to get some help. Maybe you can stop by and see a doctor after school..."

"No," Phil immediately replied, "I got this situation taken care of myself. We're just gonna stop by, Country Cuisine, again after school and soon this whole thing will be old news."

"Phil, I don't see how going to, Country Cuisine, is going to help you get over your problem, but if you insist, I guess I'll tag along. You just gotta make it through the school day, first and we'll be at the restaurant before you know it."

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it through the school day, Keely," Phil replied, looking down at grumbling stomach. "I'm already starting to feel the effects of hunger."

At school, the bell rang for first period, as Keely and a starving Phil, went to class. Phil tried, to the best of his ability, to control his hunger as the time slowly passed by. It seemed as if the clock was moving backwards.

A bell rang again, as Phil ran out the classroom and into the cafeteria. When he got there, he noticed nobody was there. Keely followed him into the cafeteria with some agonizing news.

"Phil...uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...that was only the bell for _second period."_

"Ah, scraps!" Phil exclaimed, now more frustrated then ever. "Are you kidding me? I don't believe this..."

Second period began and a painfully, hungry, Phil munched away on pencils, erasers, paper...anything he could get his hands on. Lunch was approaching soon, which would give Phil the chance to slightly relieve his starvation until after school. However, the clock didn't seem to go any faster than before.

"Keely, these cravings are going out of control. I've never been so hungry in my life! I've already chewed through an entire box of pencils and eaten nearly a whole pack of paper. That bell _really_ needs to hurry up soon because my hand is starting to look _pretty_ tasty.

At last, an hour later, which felt like three days, the lunch bell rang. Phil was the first one to shoot out of his seat and burst into the cafeteria, pulling the door off of its hinges! He moved at lightning speed through the halls until he got to the concession stand, ordering the most food anyone had ever seen purchased at lunch.

Keely was waiting at their normal, lunch table, as she saw Phil carrying food stacked up to his head. Again, Phil wasted no time getting down to business, savagely devouring every morsel of food in his presence. Hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, nachos, burritos, chips, brownies...they all waited in line to be shredded by this human blender.

Keely actually had sympathy toward the food from watching it being man-handled by Phil. The carnivorous display made Keely lose her appetite.

"Hey, Keely," Phil asked with a mouth full of food, "you gonna finish that?"

"N-no Phil...go ahead and take it..."

Phil slashed out toward her food like a lion snatching his prey.

Eventually, Phil was finished eating and ready to get through the rest of the school day. He already knew that he was going to be hungry again, right after school. It was only a matter of time before he felt the grumbling in his stomach.

The final bell rings and Phil couldn't be happier. Just like what he predicted, his savage appetite caught up with him. He kept thinking that this was all going to be over soon, as he headed to Country Cuisine. Just one plate...one meal, has the power to put this overwhelming hunger aside, once and for all.

"It's time to confront this thing, face to...stomach," Phil said, determined. "I'm starving and I'm seein' a, Pickford Gut-Buster, with my name on it..."


	4. The Finale

**Chapter 4**

The moment of truth had finally arrived, as Phil and Keely swung open the double-doors of, Country Cuisine. Keely was still pretty vague on what exactly Phil planned to do at the restaurant, but after a look at his determined face, she realized what his plan was.

"Keely, let's sit at that table over there. The one on the platform...in the corner of the restaurant."

"Wait, Phil, that table is only reserved for those who plan on trying to eat the..."

"Yeah, I know," Phil interrupted, confidently. "C'mon, let's hurry up before someone else decides to get there."

"Phil, trust me, I really don't think anyone else in here plans on taking that table..."

The two of them casually headed toward the corner table, sat down, and patiently waited for the waiter to come by to take Phil's "special" order. The table looked the same as it was the last time they came in, when that man tried to take on the monster-sized meal. It seemed that nobody else, since that night, dared to sit at the table.

A waiter came by to see who will be the next victim of the extra-large platter.

"Which one of you two is the challenger?" the waiter asked.

"I am," Phil announced, as he stood up proudly on his two legs. "I am the one who wishes to challenge the...Pickford Gut-Buster!"

The entire restaurant was filled with gasps and dropping forks. Everyone turned around and looked to see who wished to be next, to fall at the hands of the, Pickford Gut-Buster. They were stunned to see that a mere, puny, teenage boy agreed to the challenge. He was a sure bet to fail.

"I really hope you know what you're getting yourself into, kid," the waiter said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"One-hundred percent," Phil replied. "I'm ready to see my picture on that wall of champions."

"Alright then, but don't say I didn't warn you," the waiter commented. "You're order should be done in about twenty minutes. Help yourself to some peanuts, but don't spoil your appetite..."

The waiter walked away with Phil's order in his hand, sealing his fate.

"Are you crazy?" Keely asked, still wondering what possessed Phil to take on the challenge. "Men about five times your size have tried to finish the, Pickford Gut-Buster, and all of them were never able to do it. You're just setting yourself up for failure..._and_ a bill for fifty dollars!"

"Keely, I said I have this situation under wraps. This problem has been eating away at me for days now and I felt like if I didn't do something today, I literally was going to eat away myself. Trust me, Keel, I really think I can do this. I just need some support and encouragement from my best friend...can you do that for me?"

Phil smiled at Keely, as he rested his hand on her shoulder.

"You got it, buddy," Keely replied, smiling back. "Get out there and eat like you've never eaten before."

A handful of waiters came back, carrying Phil's plate, which was mounted with an endless supply of steak, onions, potatoes, vegetables, rolls and other assorted items. Sirens and strobe lights went off in the restaurant and a spotlight was shined on Phil. Everyone watched him, as he became the center of attention.

The waiter gave Phil his napkin, and his silver utensils of destruction. It was time for him to become immortalized, admired, remembered. It was time for him to become a Pickford legend and finally put his monstrous hunger to rest. A whistle was blown, which signified the start of the challenge.

Phil didn't hesitate to dig into his platter, tearing away at mouthfuls of food, slowly cutting away the mountain on his plate. Keely was sitting right across from him, giving him advice the entire time.

"Phil, don't take such large bites. Pace yourself, take decent-sized bites and don't forget to breathe, too. Geez, it looks like you're just inhaling the food, right into your stomach."

Phil nodded as he was eating, to signify that he got was she was saying. He slowed down and prevented himself from choking to death.

The minutes passed by, as an intrigued audience closely watched this...young kid, slowly consuming the meal. It wasn't too long before he had the whole restaurant cheering him on. Phil felt his confidence gradually rising with all the support.

Thirty minutes passed and Phil seemed to have taken a large chunk off his plate. Yet, he still didn't seemed phased, the least bit, by fullness. His overwhelming hunger drove him forward to keep on with his challenge.

"You're doin' great!" Keely exclaimed. "It won't be too long now before you get to pose for that picture to be put up on the wall."

By now, every single person in, Country Cuisine, including the cooks, were spectators of this eating show. Food was being burnt in the kitchen and customers' food was getting cold, but nobody cared nor noticed. The center of attention was on Phil, who possibly could be the first inductee onto the wall of champions.

Pieces of steak, potatoes and vegetables were flying off Phil's plate, as he soon reached the halfway point of his meal. He hadn't even touched his glass of water yet, unaware to him that it was there.

Now, forty-five minutes has passed, as Phil sped up his pace. It looked like he was following a pattern, like music...one, two, three...one, two, three...one, two, three. Not to mention that his face and bib were a mess, too. He looked like a moving abstract painting, but still, that didn't even phase him as he continued on.

A few more minutes had passed and Phil managed to eat away about three-fourths of his plate. A couple minutes after that, he worked his way into the homestretch. However, everyone noticed that his eating started to slow down. The pace that he had been following began to become irregular. Maybe, Phil was bound to fall at the mercy of the Pickford Gut-Buster, just like everyone before him.

Suddenly, Phil dropped his fork onto the table and collapsed over his plate. It seemed as if his raging appetite was finally tamed, but it was definitely the wrong time for it to happen. He still needed to finish the meal...he just had a few more bites to go.

"The challenger is down! The challenger is down!" yelled one of the waiters. "Start the ten count!"

Another waiter proceeded to start the count, "One!...two!...three!..."

"Phil, Phil, c'mon and get up!" Keely exclaimed, trying to pull him up. "You're too close to give up now...just a few more bites. C'mon!"

The whole restaurant began to chant Phil's name, hopefully to give him enough strength to get up and finish what he started.

"Six!...seven!...," the waiter continued to count.

Phil was still unable to get up, even in the midst of all the crowd's chanting. The platter just appeared to be too much for him to handle.

"Eight!...nine!...," the waiter was getting down to the end of the count. The audience gave up hope on Phil, knowing that he was surely down for the count. It was all just a matter of hearing that final ten to signify that it was officially over.

"Te...," the waiter was interrupted, as his arm was stopped from swinging down.

"Don't count me out yet. I still have room for dessert," Phil said, humorously, as he got back up to finish his plate.

Phil felt suddenly rejuvenated and filled with vigor, as he attacked every last morsel of food on his plate. Building up every last amount of willpower he had, he took that long-awaited, final fork-full of steak and loaded it into his mouth, making history. Phil swallowed it and stood up on his feet, with his arms in the air.

"Do you believe it, folks!" the waiter announced. "This kid has made Pickford history! He is the first person _ever_ to conquer the Pickford Gut-Buster! Let's give him a hand everyone. I mean, this is unbelievable, he _truly_ deserves it!"

Everyone got up and gave Phil a loud, standing ovation, including Keely, who stuck by him the whole time.

"You did it, champ!" Keely exclaimed, winking at Phil with a smile on her face.

A photographer came and took the historic picture of Phil, to put on the wall of champions. He definitely wasn't looking his best, but he really didn't care. Soon after, a news reporter came by for a quick interview with him.

"Phil, you've just accomplished the impossible and consumed the biggest meal in Pickford. How do you feel?"

"Well," Phil replied, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but for the first time in days, I'm _actually_ full..."


End file.
